John and Cindy did not originally enter the Carrboro Farmers' Market as farmers.
In 1994, Cindy joined as an artist creating fabric appliques for her customers of
their houses and of their pets. Then she added spearmint to her table since their
land has a field of spearmint, and then she added some of the many tomatoes she
grew in the ample garden John had plowed for her. Cindy had grown up with
gardening; her father, a school teacher, had raised apples, pears, peaches, and
many other fruits, and her mother grew some garden vegetables. Their family was
strongly influenced by living in Greece in the early Seventies, frequenting
farmers' markets since supermarkets did not yet exist there.

John had had no
gardening experience as a youth. He spent many years working as a machinist in his
father's machine shop in Lynbrook, Long Island, and left that job to become a
commercial fisherman in the Long Island Sound. John and Cindy were forced to sell
their home on Long Island, New York when their town took them to court for keeping
a dozen hens (originally a homeschooling project), so they purchased a farm in
North Carolina in 1992 and moved their chickens south.

Once in Chapel Hill, John got a job as a carpenter, and Cindy found another
homeschooling group for learning and socializing. After they'd been in North
Carolina for five weeks, their family was involved in an automobile collision on
NC 54 that put their family through years of surgeries and therapies. Afterwards,
John went back to college to become an occupational therapy assistant, and then
got a job at Murdock Center in Butner. Cindy got a stand at the farmers' market,
and also began working part-time as a clerk at Weaver Street Market. John began
putting more and more effort into working their land so that he and Cindy could
grow more produce to sell; and when he realized the productivity possible in
farming, he quit his OTA job, bought a tractor, and became a farmer.

John now manages Eco Farm working with employees and volunteers raising
vegetables, fruits, herbs, and livestock; he has become a quality role model, and
many of his former workers now have farms of their own. Cindy concentrates on
growing flowers, creating artwork, photographs, and books, and feeding the farm
crew. Their three offspring, Shane, Nichole, and Willie, all live and work on the
farm. More information is available in their book "Photos of an Organic Family
Farm: Who We Are, What We Do, and How We Do It".